"Riddick" Movie Review

            In 2000, Pitch Black was released, and was good enough to gain a sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, which was released in 2004. Since The Chronicles of Riddick let down many fans, so they decided to make a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick that would be more like the first one. So, Riddick was made with a higher budget and newer technology, and also creating a trilogy.

            

How was the acting?

Riddick stars Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable, and Katee Sackhoff. Vin Dielsel’s performance in this movie was good, but not as good as his performances in the past two movies in the trilogy. Sometimes it seemed somewhat choppy and fake. Other than that, Riddick was a believable character who you care about. Jordi Mollà had an alright performance as Santana. Sometimes he did well, but there were scenes when he was supposed to be more series than comical and he didn’t handle that material was. Matt Nable did very, very well in his role as Boss Johns. His facial expressions showed his emotions, which he also expressed with the way he talked. Johns was even a likeable character that I cared about sometimes. Katee Sackhoff, playing Dahl, did very well. She handled the material when she was supposed to be tough, comical, scared, mad, etc. Sackhoff gave a very stable performance. Some of the supporting cast, though, didn’t do the best. A small number of them did do well, but most of them gave an alright performance. Their performances were acceptable, and I didn’t have many problems, but they didn’t portray their characters to the full extent. Some of supporting cast, though, did not do well. There were two or three of them that I didn’t feel tried their best with the material to portray their characters. The acting overall, was actually good in this film, though.

            

            How was the writing?

            The writing for Riddick had its good and bad parts. This is the least serious movie of the trilogy. It’s just supposed to be a fun action movie with humor. The film was funny, but some of the humor was overused and/or went too far. There were a few lines in the movie that were cheesy. Most of the humor was not mature humor, other than a few lines that expressed smart humor. They did pull off the humor element of the movie. There was good dialogue in the film that expressed chemistry between characters, but most of the dialogue was acceptable, but nothing special. The dialogue was fine, though. Another thing that the screenplay expressed was how character’s actions reflected on their dialogue, their situation, and even the tone of the film. That worked well for the movie.

            

            Did it have an interesting premise?

            The premise is that Riddick (Vin Diesel) gets left for dead on a desert-like planet that has all of these creatures that kill everything they see, then when he makes people aware that he is on the planet, teams come down to capture him and turn him in for money, but when they get him, the creatures attack them, and they have to team up with Riddick to survive. I thought the premise of this film was interesting. The story was also good, except for the fact that it seemed like three films in one. The first one would be when Riddick is on this planet with many big creatures and he has to survive. The second one would be when these people come to the planet, and they try to capture Riddick. The third one would be when the people have to team up with Riddick to survive the creatures. My least favorite of these would be the second, because you see little of Riddick and it’s from the people’s point of view. My favorite would be the first one, because it was basically Riddick versus the planet, and it was very cool. I thought the third was actually almost as good as the first, but it was just a little more similar to the second one than the first one was. The story did have good events, though. Now I’m going to touch up on the characters. The film had good characters. The people who come are almost all interesting. One of ties into another character that was in Pitch Black (he wasn’t in this one). The characters surprised me, because they some depth to them.

            

            Was it entertaining or boring?

            For the most part, the movie was entertaining. The first act of it had its slow parts, and those weren’t miserable, but it was mostly enjoyable. It was a good section of the film. The second act, though, had several boring scenes. It did have good scenes, but it was very slow. The slow parts were used to introduce and develop the new characters, but I didn’t find it that interesting. I wanted it go back to Riddick. The third act was when many things happened, so, since the film had set out for several things to happen, it would be hard to make that boring, and they didn’t make it boring. There were a few slow scenes in the beginning, but like the slow scenes in the first act, they weren’t miserable. They weren’t as bad as the slow scenes in the second act, but those weren’t miserable either. Anyway, after the slow scenes, it picks up, and there are very cool scenes after that. Those scenes were also very enjoyable.

            

            What things did I like about it (that I haven’t already said)?

            The special effects and CGI were very good and almost looked real. The action sequences were also usually pretty good. That’s probably it for the things I haven’t already said that I liked.

            

            What things did I like about it (that I haven’t already said)?

            Throughout the whole movie, the musical score seemed somewhat repetitive, somewhat overused, and somewhat overdramatic. I thought in some parts they were giving too much music or they didn’t need to have music. Also, there was one strange scene in the second act of the film that I didn’t really like. It had comical elements that weren’t funny, it overdid itself, it was overdramatic, and it lasted too long.

            

            How was it overall?

            Riddick had pretty good action sequences, many good acting parts, was mostly enjoyable, very good special effects, good characters, good premise and story, was funny, some good dialogue, and good character actions, but had some boring scenes, some illogical things, some cheesy lines, a bad musical score, some mediocre and some bad acting parts, and had one scene that really bothered me.

            

            Do I recommend this film?

            I do recommend Riddick, but not seeing it in the theater. With its problems, I don’t think it would be worth the price. Watching it at home after it comes out on Blu-Ray and DVD would be good.

            

            What’s this film’s rating?

            On my rating scale, I made a little alteration, because Riddick didn’t have enough stupid things for me to say it’s “Good if you don’t watch it seriously”, and it’s better than “Not bad”, but it’s not quite “A good movie”, so I’ll say it’s “A good movie, exclusively watching it at home”.
            On the grading rating scale, I give it a B.
            I also give Riddick a 64/100 on the out-of-100 scale.

            

           

Will I buy this film?

            Since I only recommend watching this as a rental, it is not worth buying. I don’t really think it would be worth watching again, even though I wouldn’t mind watching it again. I just don’t feel like I need to and I don’t feel like I need to show it to everyone.